As one could probably imagine, electric guitars were a rarity in the former Soviet Union. This led Yuriy to build guitars for friends and colleagues in the small confines of a root cellar in his hometown of Gomel. Handcrafting not only many of his own woodworking tools, but creating instruments that led to him to becoming one of the most respected luthiers and renaissance type guitar builders around.

Since moving to the States , Shishkov has collaborated with a range of top artists, including late shredder Dimebag Darrell of Pantera, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Nuno Bettencourt, Robin Zander of Cheap Trick and Paul Stanley of Kiss.

Anyways, although always having been a fan of Fender Strats, in general, they mostly looked and felt the same to me. Yuriy’s elements bring an entire new panache to the ordinary at Fender. His hand wound pick-ups sound amazing and the playability of these instruments is superb!!!

My only gripe…the cost! Try a price tag of 9000 USD!

I’ll have to go hungry for a while!

City: Johannesburg

Country: South Africa

For all guitar enthusiasts…

I recently followed a link on facebook showing a duo with one of my fav guitarists Steve Vai. The other part of this duo is a 24 year old female Australian singer/guitarist called Orianthi.
She is relatively unknown in SA guitar circles but is internationally best known for being the last guitarist for Michael Jackson.
Not only is this lady an incredible guitar player…it seems like she has great song writing skills too.
I was blown away.
I found this so refreshing because most adorned guitar players have always been male. It’s about time that we get some “Y chromosome devoid” talent throughout the instrumental rock guitar genre. It does not hurt that she is quite hot too …?

Anyways…check out the following…

“Highly Strung “–Duo with Steve Vai and Orianthi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCGD80_nFSM

PS

If the link does not work, just Google it.

Cheers for now!

City: Johannesburg

Country: South Africa